


Appeal

by aliencupcake



Category: The Devil Wears Prada (2006)
Genre: Bisexual Female Character, Community: femslashex, F/F, Fix-It
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-18
Updated: 2014-10-18
Packaged: 2018-02-21 17:19:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,891
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2476169
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aliencupcake/pseuds/aliencupcake
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Andy has to make decisions on what's important to her. Her partner Nate might not be included in that. What happens if he isn't?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Appeal

**Author's Note:**

  * For [oulfis](https://archiveofourown.org/users/oulfis/gifts).



Nothing quite approached the unique awkwardness of meeting your boyfriend in a cafe when your relationship hung by a tattered thread in last season’s it color. Andy tried a friendly smile at Nate. After all, she had called him here to this cafe to figure out where things stood between them. That attempted smile felt like a fake plastered to her face. As much as she thought she _should_ have had warm feelings towards the man she said she loved, those feelings resembled cheap plastic more than any real emotion.

“So, what’s up?” Nate said. He didn’t sound too happy to see her.

Andy imagined an alternate scenario where she might have told him she’d quit her job. For the briefest moment, she’d considered it, before realizing the man sitting across from her was not worth career suicide. If he couldn’t accept her job, that meant he couldn’t accept her.

“I wanted to talk?” she said, her feelings towards Nate feeling more and more like hardened plastic.

Nate smiled. “Tell me you quit your job for real this time?”

“No, I didn’t quit.” She resisted making a face.

“Then why did you want to meet up, anyway?” he asked, sounding confused.

“Because we… were on a break? I wanted to see where things stood. That’s reasonable, right?” Things stood on shaky ground, it seemed.

“Has anything changed?” Nate’s smiled turned into a disapproving frown, reminding Andy of how a teacher might look at a pupil who stepped out of line.

 _Had_ anything changed? That was a legitimate question. Andy’s job status remained the same, and her maybe-boyfriend was the same man he’d always been. None of that had changed, but something felt irreversibly different between them. As much as Andy tried, she could not summon up the warmth and affection she’d once felt for Nate. Her feelings towards him refused to shift from their plastic state.

Nate didn’t deserve her warmth and affection, much less any true romantic feelings.

“I mean, you’re still attached at the hip to that silly job of yours, aren’t you?” Nate continued, like nothing was different at all.

“It’s not silly.”

He shifted in his seat, one eyebrow slightly raised. “You know what I think about it. Look, it’s nice to see you and all, but if your primary relationship is still with _her_ , this isn’t going to work.”

“So you’re saying unless I quit my job, we’re over? Am I hearing you correctly?” Andy fixed him with a flat stare, trying to process the absurdity of the situation. “And your job matters so much, right?”

“Actually, I got a new job.” Nate smiled, like he’d not just given her an ultimatum. “I’m going to be the new sous-chef at –”

“– wait a minute. You’re allowed to move up in your career, and I’m not? Why, because it doesn’t make sense to you? How is that fair?” She blinked at him because that defied logic.

“It’s different. I actually care about –”

“– I care about my job, too. Even if you think it’s stupid.” Andy grabbed her bag and stood up from her seat, shaking her head at Nate as she did. “If you can’t muster up so much as a shred of respect, I don’t know what we’re doing here. Maybe this ‘break’ should be permanent. I can’t do this anymore.”

She turned to leave without so much as looking back at Nate. If she did, she might lose her resolve and let herself be taken in by him.

***

It was a time-honored tradition to commiserate with your friends after a breakup, but that worked only when you had friends who wouldn’t take your ex’s side. Andy knew they would think she’d been brainwashed or something; Lily especially seemed invested in her staying with Nate.

Andy walked down the street, wondering why she didn’t feel that distressed over the breakup. Weren’t you supposed to feel like your heart had been cut out when you had to dump your boyfriend? Her feelings towards Nate truly must have turned to fake plastic. She didn’t know when it had happened, but it had.

That didn’t mean she didn’t wish she had someone with whom she could commiserate, even if it was just to roll her eyes at how _Nate_ could upgrade his career while _she_ wasn’t supposed to do that.

Without conscious thought, Andy dialed a number on her cellphone. Only when her phone started ringing did she realize she’d called Emily, whom she had been avoiding due to the frosty air between them.

“Hello?” snapped the voice on the other end of the line.

“Um, hi?” Andy found herself at a loss for words.

“Did you have a _reason_ for calling me?” She didn’t sound happy at all, which was no surprise, really.

“I… you know… wanted to make up for how we left things?”

“And how exactly did you plan to do that?” Emily’s voice reverberated with irritation and contempt.

Andy didn’t actually know how to fix things, so she blurted out the first idea that came to mind. “I… don’t know if you’d want, but I have all these clothes from Paris, more than I can actually use. I was hoping… you could take some of them off my hands for me?”

There was a pause before Emily said anything. “Well, I _suppose_ I could help you out, though anything of yours would drown me.” She told Andy where to drop off the clothes.

That should have been the end of things. Somehow, it wasn’t. Andy kept speaking, desperate to keep Emily on the line. Even if the other woman held her in contempt for stealing Paris from her, she was another voice – one who wouldn’t tell Andy she was selfish keep her lucrative job. “I'm sorry for everything. I knew how much Paris meant to you. I was having all this trouble with my boyfriend, and I didn't know what I was doing,” Andy said, all but babbling. Never mind that, she _was_ babbling.

Emily sniffed, sounding as derisive as ever. “It’s that kind of situation which makes me glad I have no interest in boys.”

“You’re a…?” Andy didn’t say it, partly worried it was rude.

“Yes, I’m a lesbian. It’s not a dirty word. _Tell me_ you’re not stuck back in the dark ages when enormous shoulder pads were an innovation.”

Andy couldn’t see the other woman, but she suspected Emily was rolling her eyes as she spoke. As for Andy herself, she took a few moments to get her mouth to stop opening and closing without any sound coming out of it. “Oh no, I’m not stuck in the dark ages. No, uh, giant shoulder pads. So yeah, good for you.” What did you say when your coworker told you something like that?

“Is there anything else?” Emily asked.

“I think that’s it?” Andy didn’t want to be left alone, but she doubted Emily wanted to listen to her make incoherent noises about her sexuality.

“Goodbye then.” Emily hung up the phone, leaving Andy feeling more alone than was strictly logical.

***

The next day at work, Andy told herself she wouldn’t make things weird. No reason existed for things to be weird. She wasn’t the type to think there was anything wrong with Emily’s sexuality, or even the type to care who her coworkers wanted to be with. So why couldn’t she stop thinking about it?

Though Andy had promised not to behave in a strange manner, Emily didn’t seem to agree that she acting normally. 

Emily narrowed her eyes at Andy during a rare moment when neither of them were swamped with ringing phones and other attention-grabbing features of their jobs.

“Do you need anything? Has your vacation in Paris addled your mind so much you can’t do your job? Have I got something on my face because I assure you my skin is blemish-free. I checked.” Emily typed something at her computer while managing to glare at Andy at the same time.

Andy blinked, shaking her head. “No, um, I can tell your skin is perfect.” Was it just her, or did that come out sounding rather bizarre?

It wasn’t just her. Emily blinked herself. “Of course it is. Now I suggest you get back to work unless you _want_ to have your head served on a silver platter.”

“Right.” Andy turned back to her work. For a while, things proceeded more or less as they always did, if she ignored the tension buzzing between them. Surely that was just a result of awkwardness since Andy had gone to Paris while Emily hadn’t?

Why was it so hard to concentrate? Andy kept stealing glances at Emily, as if she had forgotten what her coworker looked like and needed to remind herself. Every time she was – almost – caught, Andy ducked her head and typed more quickly than she needed to type. This almost resulted in her sending an inappropriate email to an important client.

When it was almost time to leave, Andy sneaked in another glance at Emily – and was decidedly caught that time.

“What _is_ it with you today?” Emily shook her head.

Andy didn’t know the correct answer to that. She felt caught. “Do you have a girlfriend?” she blurted out. Whatever the correct response to Emily’s question was, it was _definitely_ not that. What had possessed her?

Much to Andy’s surprise, Emily herself looked a little take aback, when she was usually so calm and collected. The startled mood didn’t last long, replaced by a perfect raised eyebrow. “Why, are you interested?”

“Not if you already have a girlfriend.” For some reason, Andy managed to keep saying the most ridiculous things.

“So you’re saying if I don’t have a girlfriend, you would be interested?” She didn’t lower her eyebrow yet, but there was a strangely captivating sparkle in her eyes.

Standard logic would dictate that Andy apologize for her uncontrolled words and say she didn’t know what she was doing. Instead, Andy didn’t follow standard logic. She couldn’t take her eyes off Emily, even though both of them still had work to do.

“I… would you be interested in me? If you didn’t have a girlfriend?” That was not what Andy had meant to say, but she couldn’t bring herself to regret it. Admittedly, she was curious if Emily would be interested in her or not. It would be flattering if she was, but was it just about flattery?

“I don’t have a girlfriend,” Emily said, her expression unreadable. “You didn’t answer my question.”

“You didn’t answer mine, either. Well, my other question. And...” If she were honest with herself, there was a part of Andy that would be interested. She’d never dated another woman, but that didn’t mean she’d never thought about it. When she’d mentioned her bisexuality to Nate, he’d laughed and told her that all women liked to experiment a little. At least he hadn’t immediately asked for a threesome. She had never said anything about it to him after that, though.

“I… would be interested,” Andy mumbled, her words almost inaudible.

Apparently, they were inaudible – or at least too unclear for Emily to understand. “I beg your pardon?” Emily muttered.

What if she said no? It was too late to worry about that, wasn’t it? “I would be interested in going out, if you wanted. Do you want to?” Andy didn’t make direct eye contact.

“That wouldn’t be the worst idea in the world.” Emily’s lips turned up in a small but genuine smile, contrary to her less-than-enthusiastic words. “I know this one bar, quiet and upscale, if you would like to go?”

“Yeah – yeah, I’d like to go.” Andy hoped her face wasn’t bright red or something. She made herself look at Emily and smiled back, though she doubted she looked nearly as composed.

This would be a new experience. Andy hoped she didn’t screw everything up.

What did she even wear to a date with another woman at a fancy bar?

***

Andy thanked the forces of the universe that Nate wasn’t home when she was getting ready for her date with someone who very much wasn’t him. He had elected to sulk at a friend’s house. She squinted at herself in the mirror, wondering if the dress she’d chosen would work for the bar.

A little black dress was always in style, right?

After arriving at the bar, Andy turned from a human woman into an anthropomorphic bundle of nerves. Emily wasn’t there yet that she could see. They had agreed to meet outside the bar. Had Andy been stood up? That idea seemed ludicrous to her, but nerves tended to make thinking logically all but impossible.

Several minutes passed after their designated meeting time before Emily arrived. Andy stared, partly because she was trying to make sure it was Emily and partly because the other woman looked that good.

“You look great,” Andy breathed. “I thought for a moment you weren’t going to show.” Should she have admitted that?

“Haven’t you ever heard of being fashionably late?” Emily laughed. 

“Right. Should we head inside and find a seat?” Andy murmured, trying not to stare too hard. That would just be rude.

Emily nodded, and they headed inside. Andy let her decide where they were going to sit. They ended up in a softly lit corner booth, with a candle flickering in a little glass container on the table.

“This place is nice,” Andy said, for lack of having anything coherent to offer. “What are you going to order?”

It turned out Emily wanted to order Champagne. She made sure to ask for a glass of the most expensive variety. “You don’t want to compromise when you’re on a date. That is just silly.”

Andy made a noise of agreement and ordered a glass of the same wine. She didn’t want to look silly on her date. One rule for proper date behavior she assumed applied to dating anybody of any gender was “don’t talk about your ex.” Andy didn’t particularly want to discuss Nate, but she did wonder if it was okay to talk about moving. She didn’t want to stay in the apartment she still shared with her ex.

“So how did you find out about this place?” Andy asked. It was a little out of the way, but as fancy and fashionable as she expected any favorite of Emily’s to be.

Emily didn’t have a chance to answer before the server arrived with their drinks. After the server left, Emily sipped her champagne. “I just found it one day. You learn things if you’ve been around a while.”

“Is that so?” Andy chuckled and took a sip of her own drink. “Hey, this is really good.”

“Of course it’s good. I don’t spend money on things that aren’t worth my time, obviously.” Emily smiled. Her eyes sparkled again.

Andy took several more sips of her drink in an attempt to calm her nerves. Her stomach fluttered, and even a relative fashion newcomer like her knew butterflies were not a proper accessory for the dress she wore.

“Thanks for taking me out,” Andy said. Those words did not do anything to calm down the fashion-disaster butterflies in her stomach. Still, they were the truth, and she did appreciate the date – enough to semi-consciously scoot closer to Emily.

Emily lifted her glass, smirking at Andy. She didn’t seem to mind the close proximity. “It wasn’t like I did this for charity. I do like you, even if you did get to go to Paris instead of me. The clothes helped.”

“I’m glad.” She responded to Emily’s smirk with a smile, though she worried she appeared goofy rather than seductive. While her date radiated sex appeal with seemingly no effort on her part, all slender and elegant lines even with crutches and her leg still in a cast, Andy didn’t know how she came across, little black dress or no. Since it was probably bad manners to stare at your date for too long, Andy avoided doing that. Instead, she sipped more from her glass. That didn’t prevent a possibly-awkward question from coming out. “When is it okay to kiss you?”

It was perhaps too forward, but Andy, strangely enough, didn’t regret asking. It was better to ask than sit there in perpetual confusion.

“Whenever you get up the guts to ask, that’s when you get to kiss me.” Emily put down her glass.

Did Andy have the courage to ask? Without a doubt, she wanted to ask, but could she get her mouth to form the right words, let alone use it to kiss someone? She decided she could. “How about now? May I kiss you?”

“If you like.” Emily closed some of the remaining distance between them. There was a pause. “Well, are you going to kiss me or not?”

“Yes, I’m going to kiss you.” Andy leaned in and did just that. The butterflies in her stomach went wild the moment her lips touched Emily’s, but now they made the perfect accessory to her little black dress.

The kiss felt perfect, soft lips against hers. In this moment, everything was right. Andy was happier than ever that she had taken control of her life and gone after what she wanted, rather than being shamed into accepting less than she deserved.


End file.
